I've had a varied career, starting as a professor before becoming a researcher at RAND. I spent some time at Price Waterhouse and as an executive in various roles at Charles Schwab. I was CIO and VP of Engineering at Google, where I oversaw all aspects of internal engineering, including Google’s 2004 IPO (yes, it was as fun as it sounds)! I also spent a short period in the music industry as president of EMI Music’s digital unit before founding my current company, ZestCash. I’m the author of Getting Organized in the Google Era, a book on personal and workplace organization. Here, you can read my take on innovation and culture, and how the two coincide. Follow me on Twitter @DouglasMerrill

Why Multitasking Doesn't Work

Right now, you might be reading this blog while cooking dinner, watching the news on TV, and riding a stationary bicycle. You’re trying to save time by doing multiple things at once.

Truth is, you’re actually wasting time. Yes, the dinner will get cooked and you’ll elevate your heart rate. But I doubt you’ll remember much of anything from either this blog or the TV news.

Multitasking is something everyone does these days. It’s hard not to multitask, given all the things we have to do and all the streams of information coming at us non-stop.

I know, you think you’re good at multitasking. And to some degree, you are. You can walk and chew gum at the same time. Folding laundry while talking on the phone? Not a problem. A clown can ride a unicycle while juggling brightly colored balls. This form of multitasking works because these are rote tasks that don’t require much brainpower.

Isn’t it madness he can’t be mine? –Chess

Unfortunately, our brains just aren’t equipped for multitasking tasks that do require brainpower. Our short-term memories can only store between five and nine things at once.

When you’re trying to accomplish two dissimilar tasks, each one requiring some level of consideration and attention, multitasking falls apart. Your brain just can’t take in and process two simultaneous, separate streams of information and encode them fully into short-term memory.

When information doesn’t make it into short-term memory, it can’t be transferred into long-term memory for recall later.

If you can’t recall it, you can’t use it. And, presumably, you are trying to learn something from whatever you are doing, right? Instead of actually helping you, multitasking works against you. It’s making you less efficient, not more.

When I was at Google, I attended lots of meetings in which others had their laptops open. It wasn’t that these people didn’t care about what was being said. It’s just that they had lots of other things to do, and juggling several tasks at once seemed like a good idea.

It wasn’t.

Soon it became clear that many people were missing important stuff in meetings. They weren’t paying attention to what was going on around them because their brains were otherwise occupied. So the information shared in meetings never had a chance to break into their short-term memory banks.

Fairly soon, it became clear that having laptops open in meetings was lowering productivity instead of raising it. So we declared some meetings no-laptop zones.

// Side note: Of course, this created an unintended consequence. When people thought they had something more important to deal with, they simply left the meeting. While this was distracting for the others in the meeting, at least it was a more effective use of the escapees’ attention. //

My whole existence is flawed –Nine Inch Nails, “Closer”

Multitasking can be expensive, too—and dangerous. I learned that lesson a few years ago. I was writing a text message on my phone as I pulled up to a stoplight. Sadly, I misjudged the distance between my car and the one in front because I wasn’t fully paying attention. I hit the other car, though no one was hurt. Still, it was the most expensive text I’ve ever sent. And I learned my lesson.

I’m often asked if this is a generational phenomenon. Specifically, “everyone knows kids are better at multitasking.” The problem? “Everyone” is wrong. Their brains, especially the limits imposed by short term memory, are the same as those of adults. Even though your kid boasts she can watch TV and study simultaneously, don’t believe her. If nothing else, learning to concentrate is a skill that will serve her not only with geography exam but also with life.

So instead of reading this blog while watching the news, cooking dinner, and exercising, try something different. Go for a run or a swim. Do yoga. Give your brain a break. Everything else can wait.

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Totally concur on the note taking role for laptops — in fact, we used Google Docs to take minutes in our meetings. Someone in each meeting was assigned to take notes on a shared Google Doc, and we projected the notes on the wall of the conference room. Folks sitting in the room often made corrections to the note. People who weren’t in the room, and so suffered from bad phone links, etc., could read along on the document, asking questions, etc. Essentially, the notes were co-created by all the members of the meeting. Most excellent.

My comment really applies only to people who are trying to read their email during the meeting, but actually doing each poorly.

Thanks, Douglas for sharing the science behind what our common sense should tell us.

Another anecdote to add – the MythBusters show demonstrated that talking on a cellphone while driving was equivalent to driving drunk. Processing a conversation and staying tuned to the road are both higher order tasks that suffer when done simultaneously.

I’m not about to suggest that driving and cell phone use are a wise idea; however, if one has a bluetooth connection, it is no different than talking to a passenger in the front seat. Perhaps all cell phones should come STANDARD with such a device and only FUNCTION via that means……… hmmmm, now THAT’s a great idea. :)

good one. I had never been in favor of multitasking, even then I am so much occupied that I have to do it all the time. After several trials and errors I have realize that I had better not said yes to every task. We are humans and we should not exceed our capacities to accomplish every single task.

It also seems like that people these days do everything and accomplish nothing..it makes more sense to focus on 1 or 2 things and do it right. Do we have just too many choices these days and do we feel that if we are not multitasking that we are failing?

This is not true of everyone. Musicians who compose, conduct, play classical piano or drums are all quite capable of actively maintaining four to six independent trains of thought in their memories at one time.

Professional pianists who must site-read music they have never seen before can have 4-6 “voices” they need to separate, bring out, speed up or slow down, emphasize or minimize going at different cadences and rhythms while reading several measures ahead of what they are currently playing.

I assure you that the human brain IS capable. That few develop theirs I do not challenge, but continually telling people who COULD be accomplishing 6+x more in what they do daily that it is impossible does those who are capable a disservice.

I write while answering sometimes as many as six different people at once in Skype and have multiple groups of people who are holding conversations I am active in WHILE WORKING. When running a Twitter chat or party I am moving between 5 windows (3 open to Twitter home, search for that hashtag, and my stream plus TweetChat plus TweetGrid) AND interacting with all the people on that chat or party AND sharing resources from posts I’m pulling up live to copy and paste the URLs into the chats.

It’s hard not to agree with that. Being multitasking is not only hard and uneffective, but also annoying. While I can read a book and listen to instrumental music (like ambient), I can’t do the same with vocal music (like rock or rap). I especially hate the situation when I talk with someone while watching TV. It’s similar to situation when two or more poeple are talking at the same time – you can’t understand any of them and all you can hear is noise.

Learning while watching TV sounds like a lie to me. You can’t pay attention to a book if something is talking. At least I can’t. I need a silence if I must learn anything.

It’s not the way to do things faster. It’s a way to get sensory overload and it’s not a good thing.